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  • Sound Bite exhibit
  • Sound Bite exhibit
  • Find out how a cochlear implant helped one man regain the ability to listen.
  • Sound Bite exhibit
  • Sound Bite exhibit
  • Electronic Listening | Michael Chorost

Sound Bite

Listen with your bones.

Bite down on a straw and listen to music that only you can hear, as sound travels to your inner ear via your teeth and bones. 


Where:   This exhibit is not currently on view.
Exhibit Developer:   Mary Elizabeth Yarbrough, 2006

What’s going on?

Ordinarily, you hear sounds when vibrations traveling through the air get captured by the outer ear (or pinna) and sent to the inner ear (or cochlea), where they are transformed into nerve impulses and sent to the brain.

Here, sound waves from a vibrating rod travel directly to your inner ear via bone conduction—sound vibrations travel through your teeth and bones when you bite down on the rod.

Sound travels much more efficiently through solids than through air. A person biting the rod can hear music loud and clear, others standing nearby don’t hear a thing.

This early hearing aid, called a Dentaphone, worked by bone conduction; using it required biting down on a sheet of hardened rubber. Some modern hearing aids still rely on bone conduction—but through the skull, not the teeth. Photo courtesy of Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine. (click image to enlarge)

 
Phenomena: Resonance
Keywords: vibration
Aliases: Bite-O-Phone
Collections: Listen

More to explore

Electronic Listening | Michael Chorost
Find out how a cochlear implant helped one man regain the ability to listen.
Listen: Making Sense of Sound
Listen: Making Sense of Sound

Examine the art and science of listening through a series of online activities, videos, and more.

Science activity that demonstrates sound conduction
Sound Bite

Tune in to tunes with your teeth.

Science activity that transmits sounds through your body instead of the air
Radiohead

Listen to the radio in an unconventional way.

Related exhibits

Chladni Singing
Chladni Singing

Use your voice to make visible patterns in sand.

Oscylinderscope
Oscylinderscope

See how strings behave when they vibrate and make sound.

Aeolian Harp
Aeolian Harp

Listen to a 27-foot-tall harp that's strummed by the wind.

Out Quiet Yourself
Out Quiet Yourself

How quietly can you tread this gravel path?


IMLS acknowledgment

This web project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MA-30-16-0175-16].

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